|
John Wayne (1907-1979),
American motion-picture actor, beloved as the archetype of rugged, honest
American manhood, and a Hollywood star for 40 years. He was born
Marion Michael Morrison in Winterset, Iowa. Wayne was a star athlete at the
University of Southern California when he began playing small roles in films. In
1929 he was cast in his first leading role, in The Big Trail (1930). Thus
began one of the most phenomenal careers in film history. After appearing in
routine Westerns and action films for about ten years, Wayne gained prominence
almost overnight when he was cast by director John Ford in the lead
role of the ground-breaking Western Stagecoach (1939). Soon he was in
great demand as a leading man, and he was continuously cast until the mid-1970s,
usually as a tough, taciturn, idealistic cowboy or military man.
Among the most memorable of Wayne's more than 250 films
are They Were Expendable (1945), Fort Apache (1948), She Wore a
Yellow Ribbon (1949), Rio Grande (1950), The Quiet Man (1952),
and The Searchers (1956), all directed by John Ford; Red River
(1948), Rio Bravo (1959), Hatari! (1962), and Rio Lobo
(1970), all directed by Howard Hawks; The Alamo (1960) and
The Green Berets (1968), both of which Wayne produced, directed, and
starred in and which clearly convey his conservative philosophy; and True
Grit (1969), in which he portrayed Rooster Cogburn, a performance that
earned him an Academy Award for best actor (and which he reprised in the 1975
film Rooster Cogburn, costarring Katharine Hepburn).
Wayne's other notable films include Sands of Iwo
Jima (1949), Hondo (1953), The High and the Mighty (1954),
Blood Alley (1955), The Comancheros (1961), McLintock
(1963), and his final picture, The Shootist (1976). Wayne was
posthumously awarded a Congressional Gold Medal, the highest civilian honor
granted by the United States Congress.
His son Michael, who headed Wayne's own production
company, Batjac Productions, produced most of his father's films beginning in
1963. His sons Patrick Wayne and John Ethan Wayne both became motion-picture
actors. |
